1.13.2012

Federal Reserve exposed as a pack of giggling morons as economic collapse loomed

Just the facts here. From their own meeting transcripts, in the New York Times:

“We think the fundamentals of the expansion going forward still look good,” Timothy F. Geithner, then president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, told his colleagues when they gathered in Washington in December 2006.
Some officials, including Susan Bies, a Fed governor, suggested that a housing downturn actually could bolster the economy by redirecting money to other kinds of investments.
And there was general acclaim for Alan Greenspan, who stepped down as chairman at the beginning of the year, for presiding over one of the longest economic expansions in the nation’s history. Mr. Geithner suggested that Mr. Greenspan’s greatness still was not fully appreciated, an opinion now held by a much smaller number of people.

... and this:

Ms. Yellen said: “It’s fitting for Chairman Greenspan to leave office with the economy in such solid shape. The situation you’re handing off to your successor is a lot like a tennis racquet with a gigantic sweet spot.”

Click on over and read the whole sickening thing, exposing plainly that the puppetmasters pulling the strings of our economy are driveling idiots.
Then check out the reactions from around the web: ZeroHedge, KennyBing, and soon I hope from the Dirty Fed's tormentor-in-chief Jr. Deputy Accountant.
UPDATE: Randall Forsyth weighs in at Barron's:

just-released transcripts of its deliberations from 2006 shows the central bankers at the time to be relatively unconcerned about impending decline in the housing market, which touched off the worst financial crisis and economic downturn since the Great Depression.
Which raises the question: if the Fed can't accurately assess the present, how well will policy makers be able to forecast [or centrally plan! - ed.] the future?
And while some of the Fed officials from five years ago have moved on -- notably former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, whose term was up at the end of January 2006 -- the main players are still in power. That would include the two most important U.S. economic officials -- the present Fed chairman, Ben Bernanke, who took over after the erstwhile Maestro's departure, and Tim Geithner, then the head of the New York Fed (which makes him vice chairman of the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee) and now the Secretary of the Treasury.